Contemptible
I've been on the online chat for over 4 hours today trying to get a resolution.
I renewed my contract on 2nd March, via the renewal email that I got from Virgin. I got an email today saying they'd be taking a payment of more than £50 above my usual cost. Contacted them and was told that I hadn't "accepted the order within the required 7 days".
I asked repeatedly where in the email or the pre-contract info that it says I am supposed to respond at all, let alone within 7 days, and got absolutely no useful answers. "Maylem" was beyond unhelpful, patronising and ignored all of my questions.
This exact thing happened to two of my family members in recent weeks. It's a disgusting tactic by Virgin aimed to trick loyal customers into falling onto an expensive rolling contract. When you get in touch with them, they say they can no longer offer you the original renewal price. But when I pursued this problem on behalf of my father-in-law, I got through to someone half-decent who said they'd honour the original renewal price by creating a new contract at the higher price with a recurring credit to his monthly bill to bring it down to the original price he was offered.
The service from this dogsh*t company is utterly contemptible. I've now cancelled, but they're taking today as the start of my 30-day notice period, which means in a few days I'll pay over £140 for a "service" that's supposed to be £90. They're also having the audacity to charge a further "final" bill of £30 in May.
New customers can get the same contract that I had plus an iPad for less than what I was offered at the original renewal stage.
These forums (as well as others like Reddit) are absolutely littered with people like me who can't work out why their contracts suddenly massively go up in price only to be told there's some non-existent "you must accept within 7 days" thing in the contract. It doesn't exist. It does NOT say anywhere that this is a thing. Is it written in invisible ink? The first guy I spoke to online told me that "online renewals don't go through most of the time". Are they not a COMMUNICATIONS company? How is it that online renewals don't work most of the time?
Virgin Media are a f*cking joke and I will be writing a complaint to the Communications Ombudsman. They're breaching Section 50 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
